THE SUPERPOWER FACULTIES
vs
MAPS OF THE MIND

Ingo Swann (16Nov98)

The concept of maps of the mind has considerable importance regarding
not only to the superpower faculties per se, but with regard to any efforts
to activate them via any kind of teaching-learning efforts.

The basic reason for this importance is that when new information
is in-taken by an individual, it is not only taken into a mind, but into
a mind that is already structured or formatted in some kind of way.

In this sense, the new information will be processed in ways that
accord with the formatting. In large part, the in-taken information will
at first be processed with regard to whether it is compatible or incompatible
with the formatting.

With what often amounts to diligent effort, maps can be made regarding
the major elements that characterize the formatting.

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

As discussed elsewhere in this Site, the general concept of teaching-learning
involves in-take of information, guidance by tutors and teachers and,
where appropriate, the undertaking of drills, tests, and practice sessions.

In certain areas of interest, this concept has yielded wonders that
shouldnt be denied. This concept also has an advantage in that the
topics and subjects to be in-taken (learned) can be organized in step-by-step
ways, and progressively linearized from "simple-easy" to "more
complex-involved."

Additionally, this concept expects and predicts the eventual appearance
of states of "proficiency" regarding what was in-taken.

This concept has achieved such overwhelming success that it has become,
in the modernist cultural environments of the West, the dominant concept
regarding teaching-learning.

Hence, when most think of teaching-learning, it is this concept that
they are probably referring to, and it is this concept that is probably
integrated into their mind-maps.

However, an examination of this concept as it has evolved over time
shows that best results are achieved with regard to in-taking, in rote-learning
ways, information about tangible, concrete thingsor with regard
to various activities that can be confirmed as existing by virtue of abundant
evidence that they DO exist.

This concept does not have many high success turn-outs regarding
human phenomena that can loosely be grouped under the general heading
of intangible "mental processes."

As an example of some of the distinctions involved, individuals can
learn to play chess because they can rote-learn the rules and general
concepts of that game. After that, however, the game of chess further
involves or incorporates the mental processing capacities of each individual
player.

The rules of chess, and teaching-learning them, do not distinguish
among individuals. But clearly the mental processing capacities doand
it is most certainly the latter that establishes the qualitative differences
between average and achieved chess players.

Without going too deeply into it, it can be said that our species
innately possesses at least two general categories of teaching-learning
mechanisms or systems.

One of these two categories, as already described, refers principally
and specifically to teaching-learning regarding outer, concrete phenomena
and activities related to those in some way.

However, it can easily be confirmed that our species also innately
carries a vast panorama of phenomenological activity that is exclusively
"mental" in nature, and which activity does not refer principally
or at all to outer concrete phenomena.

With regard to the strategic differences between these two general
teaching-learning perspectives, it is useful to consider that the first
primarily involves in-take of information that establishes and broadens
tangible and cognitive contact with outer concrete phenomena.

The second category, however, primarily involves our species systems
of awarenesswith the important proviso that those systems in their
first instance might not be determined by any given relationship to outer
concrete phenomena.

From this it would follow that teaching-learning regarding the first
category is dependent on direct relationships to outer concrete phenomenabut
that teaching-learning regarding the second category is not.

If this would be the case, then it would transpire that efforts to
utilize the teach-learning patterns that so exquisitely benefit the first
general category might be inefficient and non-productive regarding the
second category, this to some larger degree at least.

As but one example here, information regarding outer concrete phenomena
can be itemized and organized in perfectly logical waysbecause the
outer phenomena are tangible and visible.

If "mental processes" were likewise tangible and visible,
then they could be charted and organized in some kind of similar wayand
the rote learning so efficient with regard to outer phenomena could likewise
be honed to efficiency with regard to "mental processes."

But there is a central problem encountered in this regard. Outer
phenomena more or less stay the same, and so they can be efficiently generalized
and incorporated into step-by-step teaching-learning undertakings.

Regarding "mental processes," however, while these might
be generalized to some degree, the generalizing comes quickly to an abrupt
end in that the state and condition of each individuals "mental
processes" is differentand, in certain respects, never stays
quite the same on a moment-to-moment basis.

If we seize upon the concept of MAPS OF THE MIND, then it is useful
to consider that the mind-maps of individuals are different in very many
respects.

The meaning of this is quite clear. Any in-take of information, no
matter what it consists of, must, at the individual, fall into an individual
mind-map within which the individuals "mental processes"
are organized in ways both special and peculiar to the individual.

At least two extraordinary difficulties can thus be encountered with
regard to the second general category of teaching-learning:

In this category, there are no outer concrete phenomena that fundamentally
stabilize the teaching-learning process.

In the absence of this stabilizing factor, what happens AFTER
information is in-taken into the individuals "mental processes"
can become something of a mystery, even to the individual involved.

The major point of having briefly outlined all of the above is that
the situation regarding mind-maps in general, and INDIVIDUAL mind-maps
in particular, has something to do with if-when-how any of the superpower
faculties might actually become activated. And something quite like this
is the case no matter what kinds of information are in-taken.

This is to say that general concepts regarding the superpowers can
be taught to groups of students. But unless the exquisitely important
factor of their individual mind-maps is taken into active consideration
by BOTH the teacher and the student, then it is NOT possible to predict
profitable out-comes.

It now must be observed that the modernist West is deplorably deficient
(1) of teaching-learning concepts regarding not only the second general
category as described above, but (2) with regard to any teaching method
in which the recipient individual MUST be considered as a principal factoreven
as THE principal factor.

For clarity here, in the modern West the information to be learned
is almost always considered THE principal factor, with the teacher as
the second factor, and the individuality of the student sometimes having
no status at all.

Indeed, the modern version of education is actually based upon the
concept of mass education for the millionswith the real, but politically
concealed expectation that only some of the millions will benefit enough
in order to be suitably fitted into the societal structure.

Within the contexts of mass or even group education, then, it cannot
really be said that the either the individual learner, or individual mind-maps,
have any significant place of importance, and certainly not as THE principal
factor.

There seems to be only one kind of teaching-learning method that
places the individual in THE principal position. This is the ancient Guru-Chela
set-up as found in the East, in some parts of pre-colonial Africa, and
elsewhere.

This set-up has sometimes been adapted to group activity, but its
essential essence and success factors are based on a one-to-one relationship
between a guru and a given chela.

In this instance, the guru is not exactly a teacher, as so commonly
mistranslated into Western terms, nor is the chela actually a student.

Within the classical Eastern concept, the guru is thought of not
only as a possessor of experience and knowledge, but of wisdom and expanded
states of awareness-mental functioning.

There is an important proviso with regard to the abovethat
the guru also possesses activated or "awakened" faculties which
the chela also possesses but in a non-active or unawakened condition.

The chief function of the guru is not merely to deliver information
to the chela, but in the first instance the guru must "psych out"
the existing mind-map of the chelaso as to perceive which of the
chelas faculties need awakening, and so as to portion out information
that will directly stimulate the awakening.

Thus, there is a distinction here between the in-take and accumulation
of knowledge on the one hand, and stimulating awakenings on the other.

It is understood that unless the information in-take is designed
by the guru precisely in the light of the chelas mind-map, then
the chela might appreciate the information intellectually, but the awakenings
of the latent faculties might not occur.

The chief function of the chela is not merely to be and remain a
passive in-taker of information, but to "psych into" the mind-map
of the guru.

This is NOT a teacher-follower relationship. Rather, the expectation
is that at some point the chela and the guru mental processes, mind-maps
and awakened faculties will become equivalent, and that in the end the
chela will surpass the attainments of the guru.

In the cultural East, this kind of situation is sometimes referred
to as the on-going, unfolding path of awakening, attainment, and enlightenment.
In the pure sense of it, the situation is bastardized by transliterating
it into the Western concept of teacher-student.

Although the guru might simultaneously have several or many chelas,
the guru cannot exclusively tutor them in a collective fashion, but must
work on a one-to-one basis with the mind-maps of each.

Something akin to this guru-chela relationship is found in the West,
but usually only with regard to the arts, especially the performing arts,
where a highly achieved individual (Master) will accept to tutor up-coming
talent on a one-on-one basis.

MAPS OF THE MIND

Based on all of the foregoing, it can hypothetically be said that
anyone wanting to activate any superpower faculties has not only to consider
information to be in-taken in this regard, but what the information is
in-taken into.

Here is the all-time greatest omission of knowledge with regard to
understanding the nature of the superpowers, and with regard to the mind-maps
of individuals.

In a certain sense, it is probable that almost everyone can think
of information as seeds. But few ever consider the condition or state
of what the seeds must fall into.

In what follows, we can hypothetically think of information as seeds
which fall into a rather large assortment and variety of mind-maps of
given individuals.

Any approach to what is henceforth involved absolutely requires some
sort of orientation concerning the nature of mind-maps.

The concept of maps of the mind is a rather recent one in modernist
terms. One of the reasons for this is that modernist mainstream mind-sets
unilaterally favored the philosophy and science of materialismwhich
held that everything, including the mind, had a physical basis.

Accordingly, since the brain was a tangible, concrete affair, efforts
were directed to mapping the brainNOT the mindsince it was
assumed that mapping the brain would provide ALL answers as to what mind
consisted of.

As mapping of the brain proceed up through the 1950s and 1960s, some
few leading brain researchers began speculating that the mind was not
going to be found in the brain. THIS development, or slight glitch, within
brain research was soon smoothed over so as to keep brain mapping uniform
with expectation that the brain and mind were the same thing.

None the less, some few got the idea of trying to map the mind, an
entirely complex and horrible undertaking to be sure.

In 1981 and 1983 respectively, two important books came out, and
the remainder essay is principally a review of them. The topic of mind-maps
will also be elaborated in other essays forthcoming.

The contents of those two books, when combined are capable of reorienting
not only everyones mind maps, but a rather large variety of awareness
margins and perceptions.

Thus, both books are important for at least two reasons.

The first is that the individual can grok, probably for the first
time ever, the bigger picture regarding maps of the mindthis, of
course, only for it is worth to each individual.

The second reason is that everyones particular mind-map is
quite likely an alive, and quite dynamic thing-in-itself, and continues
"working" even when one is asleep or unconscious. As such it
actually likes to in-take information that pertains to itself, such in-take
being something like a thrilling experience.

However that may be, the two books are important because IF an organized
training school for the superpowers was ever undertaken, both of the books
would be required in the superpowers course 101.

The first book mentioned above is MAPS OF THE MIND: CHARTS AND CONCEPTS
OF THE MIND AND ITS LABYRINTHS (1981) by Charles Hampden-Turner.

The blurb on the books back cover reads: "In a ground
breaking work of scholarship, Charles Hampden-Turner presents the first
comprehensive attempt to collect, describe, and draw in map form the most
important concepts of the human mind put forth by the worlds greatest
writers, painters, philosophers, and psychologists."

The second mentioned book is FRAMES OF MIND: THE THEORY OF MULTIPLE
INTELLIGENCES (1983) by Howard Gardner, in which the author theorizes
that the mind contains a series of different kinds of intelligences. We
will consider this book first, and then move on to Hampden-Turners
impressive work.

In Part 1 of FRAMES OF MIND, Gardner establishes an overview regarding
"The Idea of Multiple Intelligences." In Part 2, he enumerates
six of them as:

Linguistic Intelligence

Musical Intelligence

Logical-Mathematical Intelligence

Spatial Intelligence

Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence

The Personal Intelligences

Here, it should immediately be mentioned that language capacities
are now considered to be universal to our species, and as such consists
of a species-wide hard drive component that downloads into each human
specimen.

By reflecting upon the other intelligences listed above, there is
good and real reason to consider that they are also hard-drive, species-universal
as well, and as such also download into each individual specimen.

In the sense above, then, the mind is not A MIND, but some kind of
co-partnership among several systemic and interactive intelligences. This
concept is entirely compatible with the concept that our species is an
intelligence-system, which downloads into individual intelligence-systems,
composed of the interactive intelligences.

Gardners book goes on to discuss "The Socialization of
Human Intelligences through Symbols" (chapter 12); and as Chapters
13 and 14 respectively, "The Education of Intelligences" and
"The Application of Intelligences."

Although Gardner titles his book as FRAMES OF MIND, he has produced
what amounts to a given map of the mind and which map contains a number
of intelligences. All societal taboos considered, he cant be blamed
too much for omitting another kind of intelligence that is likewise universal
to our speciesthe superpower intelligences.

Although FRAMES OF MIND presented the idea of multiple intelligence
as theory, it is worth noting that the theory has drifted into becoming
factually accepted, as least in principle.

The reader is now referred to a special publication by no less than
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN magazine, entitled EXPLORING INTELLIGENCE, and which
appeared in November, 1998.

This contains a number of science-based articles, among which is
found one entitled "Multiplicity of Intelligences" by none other
than Howard Gardner. (Here, it is worth noting that any article appearing
under SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN auspices more or less announces science mainstream
approval and the acquisition of scientific status.)

In this recent article, though, Gardner writes that "Rather
than having just [a single] intelligence defined by IQ, humans are better
thought of as having eight, maybe nine, kinds of intelligence." (page
19.)

The first five intelligences remain the same as given in his 1983
book, but the sixth one, Personal Intelligences, has been broken into
two parts as:

INTRAPERSONAL INTELLIGENCE"Accurately determining moods,
feelings and other mental states in oneself."

INTERPERSONAL INTELLIGENCE"Accurately determining moods,
feelings and other mental states in others, and using the information
as a [feedback] guide for behavior."

A "possible" EXISTENTIAL INTELLIGENCE"Capturing
and pondering fundamental questions of existence."

Gardner indicates that the above Intelligence is "possible,"
because "More evidence, however, is needed to determine whether this
is an intelligence." (Gasp?) Indeed, whether it is an intelligence
or not, pondering fundamental questions of existence is species-wide,
and the general concept transcends all smaller-picture cultural consortiums.

One of the cognitive benefits downloading from Gardners article
is that his "Criteria for an intelligence" are itemized into
eight categories. These criteria do not so much define what an Intelligence
IS, but are more directed to how they can be identified as such.

On behalf of reviewing this article in this essay, it is fair and
dignified to list these criteria more or less as given by Gardner.

CRITERIA FOR IDENTIFYING AN INTELLIGENCE

Potential isolation by brain damage. For example, linguistic abilities
can be compromised or spared by strokes.

The existence of prodigies, savants and other exceptional [experiencing]
individuals. Such individuals permit the intelligence to be observed
in relative isolation. [NOTE: In the sense of this particular criteria,
achieved natural psychics whose active faculties can be confirmed by
objective means could be considered as some kind of prodigy, savant
or exceptional experiencing individuals, and which permit the intelligence
involved to be observed in relative isolation.]

An identifiable core operation or set of operations. Musical intelligence,
for instance, consists of a persons [innate] sensitivity to melody,
harmony, rhythm, timbre and musical structure.

A distinctive developmental history within an individual,
along with a definable nature of expert performance.

An evolutionary history and evolutionary plausibility. One
can examine forms of spatial intelligence in mammals or musical intelligence
in birds.

Support from tests in experimental psychology. Researchers [mainstream]
have devised tasks that specifically indicate which skills are related
to one another and which are discrete. [NOTE: But with the minimal exception
of intuition, such mainstream researchers have not developed, and still
dont condone the development of, such tests with regard to, for
example, telepathy and clairvoyance.]

Support from psychometric findings. Batteries of tests reveal
which tasks reflect the same underlying factor and which do not.

Susceptibility to encoding in a symbol system. Codes such as language,
arithmetic, maps, and logical expression, among others, capture important
components of respective intelligences. [COMMENT: One wishes Carl G.
Jung were alive today to read this one!]

One particular statement from Gardner is highlighted within the text
of the article, but which can be amended a little as posited in the hard
brackets:

"All human [specimens] possess all these intelligences: indeed,
they can collectively be considered as a [hard drive] definition of Homo
sapiens, cognitively speaking."

Now to move on to briefly considerations regarding Hampden-Turners
book, MAPS OF THE MIND: CHARTS AND CONCEPTS OF THE MIND AND ITS LABYRINTHS.

For starters, in that Hampden-Turner has utilized the term LABYRINTH
in his sub-title, it is worthwhile reprising the definitions of that termwhich
most dictionaries give as:

A place constructed of or full of intricate passageways and blind
alleys

Something extremely complex or torturous in structure, arrangement,
or character

The above definitions are well and good. But the DICTIONARY OF SYMBOLS
(1962) compiled and published by J. E. Cirlot defines LABYRINTH term as:

"An architectonic structure, apparently aimless, and of a pattern
so complex that, once inside, it is impossible or very difficult to escape."

Cirlot goes on to indicate that the labyrinth, as a symbol, is very
ancient, but that the true labyrinth, in the ancient sense, has a "center."
The center might symbolize the virtual essence of the life principlewhile
the intricate passageways and blind alleys around the center symbolize
what can happen by drifting too far away from the centralizing life principle.

By stretching this symbolic metaphor a little, one might transliterate
it into the concept of getting lost in the blind alleys of smaller picturesas
might be represented by some of the more narrow aspects of parapsychology
and naive psychical literature, and also, of course, as representative
of any ism, whether philosophic, scientific or otherwise.

As it is, and to move sprightly along, in its more mundane conceptualization,
a labyrinth can properly be considered as anything extremely complex or
torturous in structure, arrangement, or characterand hence the symbol
LABYRINTH has almost universally been applied as a basic descriptor of
the human mind.

Hampden-Turners MAPS OF THE MIND includes many pictorial representations
of mind maps, and is otherwise delightful reading for anyone interested
not only in the topic of mind in general, but in ones own mind-map.
Interested specimens of our species are, of course, directed to the book
itselfin that only an all-to-brief picture of this entirely important
book can be outlined in this essay.

In the books Introduction, Hampden-Turner states:

"What is the mind? is a question that has intrigued people from
the earliest timesindeed, for as long as man has considered the
possibility of mind at all. It is the first truly philosophical question
which comes with the dawning of self-consciousness.

"Yet it stumbles on a vexing question: How can that which knows,
know itself? Each representation of the know which lacks the knower is
necessarily incomplete."

Hampden-Turner then goes on the indicate that MAPS OF THE MIND breaks
with tradition in a number of ways. Although he does not say so, the "tradition"
he refers to approximately consists of the following idea.

Philosophers, scientists, and psychologists have long held that the
mind is a given thing-in-itself in almost the same sense as a leg or the
brain are things in themselves.

For this reason, it was considered that the mind and brain are the
same thing, and that when the brain is finally completely mapped, then
the mind will also be completely mapped.

It was thus theorized that some kind of unitary brain-mind principle
would eventually be uncovered. In Hampden-Turners words, this theoretical
unitary brain-mind principle is expressed as "some unitary reality
behind multiple appearances" of the mind.

This multiple appearances," of course, partially refers to individual
mindsand which by simple counting are found to be so multiple as
to be uninteresting (and confusing) regarding extensive scientific or
philosophic inquiry.

The central purpose of MAPS OF THE MIND is to help illustrate that
ALL of its maps are not different per se, but exemplary of the minds
wholenessand which wholeness from time immemorial has utilized metaphors,
symbols and stories "to create mental pictures and configurations."

In Hampden-Turners concept of it, this "wholeness" does
not imply a unitary reality behind the multiple formats produced by the
mind. Rather, the "wholeness" is a metaphor serving as a protest
against one of the multiple formats taking precedence over all others
of them.

Thus, cultures are divided from each other by giving one map of the
mind precedence over all others produced from the same whole mind of the
species.

Hampden-Turner thus indicates that his "entire book is a plea
for the revision of social science, religion and philosophy to stress
connectedness" with regard to the whole (species) mind, rather than
stressing cultural or societal emphasis on one of its (smaller-picture)
formats or metaphors.

His "plea," as he puts it, thus gives emphasis to mind
"connectedness, coherence, relationship, organicism and wholeness,
as against the fragmenting, reductive and compartmentalizing forces of
prevailing orthodoxies."

He goes on to indicate that "My belief is that industrial [modernist]
cultures are dangerously overdifferentiated and underintegrated. [They]
compulsively exaggerate our differences while ignoring what we have in
common." Yes!!!

However, and as an aside, this present author constructing this essay
can easily enumerate at least twenty "fragmenting, reductive and
compartmentalizing" isms and mindsets through which Hampden-Turners
plea would fall like water poured into a sieve.

MAPS

Hampden-Turner goes on to explain that "We map with
words as well as images, but because words come in bits and pieces many
people have assumed that the world is in bits and pieces, too, with bits
corresponding to words."

He then suggests that one way to correct this verbal bias is to supplement
words with visual maps. "If the human mind is to be conceived as
a whole as well as parts, we need not just words to convey parts, but
patterns, pictures and schemata to convey the whole."

The text of MAPS OF THE MIND presents sixty mind-maps, which are
verbally AND visually treated. The sixty mind-maps are grouped under nine
different "levels" as follows:

LEVEL 1: Maps historical and religious

LEVEL 2: Psychoanalytic and existential maps

LEVEL 3: The physiology of brain functioning

LEVEL 4: The creative mind

LEVEL 5: Psychosocial development

LEVEL 6: Communication, language and symbolism

LEVEL 7: Cybernetics and psychobiology

LEVEL 8: The paradigmatic mind

LEVEL 9: The structure of myth

Except for a minuscule mention (in Map 55) of intuition in association
with the right hemisphere, there is no mention of any of the superpowers,
such as telepathy, clairvoyance, remote-viewing, future-seeing,, and so
forth.

However, some of these are implicitly incorporated within terms less
taboo, such as "bifurcation," "consciousness," "divergent
thinking," etc.

The index includes a reference to "energy," but only indicates
"See psychic energy."

"Psychic energy," however, does not appear as an item in
the index, and so it is difficult to "see" it. But one will
run across it in one or another of the sixty mind maps portrayed.

The index has a listing for "Energy, instinctual" and one
is directed to page 40, which discusses Map 9 entitled "The Limited
Energy Model of Sigmund Freud." Discussion of this map begins with
the observation that "Freuds contribution to our understanding
of mind began with the puzzle that we know more than that
of which we are consciously aware." Yes! Indeed!

A reading through this remarkable book will enable one to approximately
discover which, if any, of the sixty mind-maps might be nearest to resembling
ones own.

If nothing else, discovering this will make ones own mind map
feel somewhat more legitimized. After all, if by the interests of others
many people feel better if they and their minds are reflected back at
them in ways that give them a little status. Finding something in a book
that resembles ones own mind-map does give a little status.

The best source for discovering the nature of ones own mind-
map is, of course, ones own mind map. It is thus very interesting
for one to attempt to diagram ones own.

That map, after all, is the map into which in-taken information and
learning must fall.

It is now to be observed that whatever else they might consist of,
mind-maps actually have to be something like self-contained systems. These
systems not only are and contain mind configurations, but also contain
ones own mental information processing grids.

The mind-map in Hampden-Turners book that best emphasizes SYSTEMS
is Map 47, entitled "The Holarchy of Living Nature," and which
is exemplified via "The passionate pessimism of Arthur Koestler."

In explanation of the term HOLARCHY, Koestlers mind-map model
emphasizes that the mind has "permeable, reorganizable divisions
with countless feedback loops and flexible strategies." Koestler
suggested the word HOLARCHY for this concept, taken from the Greek HOLOS,
meaning whole, and ON, meaning entity.

Koestlers term HOLARCHY therefore can be defined as referring
to "a hierarchically organized, self-regulating, open system of holons."

Map 47 is thus described as "not solely applicable to biology,
[in that] it could as easily represent social organization, anatomy, linguistics,
technology or the branching of knowledge.

"For the holarchy is best regarded as a conceptual tool, not
as an end in itself, but as a key capable of opening some of natures
combination locks which stubbornly resist other methods."

However, holarchies can best be groked by first in-taking a more
expansive consideration of SYSTEMS.

END NOTE: If the sixty mind-maps in Hampden-Turners book, and
the nine intelligences of Howard Gardner, are all superimposed, one would
begin to obtain to a quite bigger picture of mind and of our species intelligence-system.

Attempting to do this verbally and visually would constitute a rather
awesome task. But in attentively studying the materials, mind finds itself
reflecting back at itselfand it is not unlikely that various rearrangements
in structure and content might automatically take place in the light of
bigger-picture making.